Jaipur: State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, is planning to establish nearly 10 lakh YONO Cash Points in the country over 18 months, said its Chairman Rajnish Kumar on Wednesday.

The platform is secure and will eliminate the requirement of using debit cards, Kumar said.

"A customer can make bill payments and can do digital transactions by using the YONO cash feature. We are considering establishing close to 10 lakh YONO Cash Points in 18 months. Nearly 70,000 Cash Points have already been established," he said at a press conference here.

The bank has no plans to discontinue debit cards but increased use of the digital platform will itself reduce the requirement of the debit cards, he said.

YONO is a digital banking platform of State Bank of India (SBI) and customers can use it on their smartphones to withdraw cash, make transactions and payments.

He added that the bank's new offer about repo rate-linked home loan is getting good response from customers. It is the customers' choice either to go with the new product or with the MCLR-linked home loan, Kumar added.

Talking about the slowdown in the automobile sector, he said there are certain trends in the market and they need to be analysed.

"It is an apparent global trend now that people are shifting from vehicle ownership to vehicle rental model due to several reasons like uncertainty of jobs and convenience. The trend should be analysed to figure out how much it is impacting the automobile industry," he said.

He also said there was a need to look into the agriculture sector in order to make it commercially viable sector.

"Due to issues in productivity, it sometimes becomes difficult for farmers to repay the loan. The government takes decision for loan waiver but despite the loan waiver, the condition of farmers does not improve, therefore, it should be looked into to ensure that the sector becomes commercially viable and the condition of farmers also improves," he said.

The banker also highlighted the advantages of YONO app for the agriculture sector. He said fertilisers, seeds, agriculture tools and equipments can be purchased on reasonable price by using YONO Mandi app.